Any of you numismatic book nerds who have not joined the NBS should strongly consider it. They publish the weekly newsletter, a quarterly journal, and generally try to keep numismatic books alive. Plus, they link to CoinTalk!!

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Well, there goes the neighbourhood...

Just kidding . The mention is very cool, indeed. I'm waiting on two volumes from Hoover's Handbook of Greek Coinage series. I'm finding them indispensable to a generalist like myself and highly recommend them.

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I don't have many Sasanian coins, but you can never have too many reference works. From Charles Davis I recently bought the two-volume series Sasanian Coins: A Sylloge of the Sasanian Coins in the National Museum of Iran.

Volume 1 has 1476 coins on 102 plates, and Volume 2 continues the numbering to coin 4424 and plate 352. Every coin has its own lengthy detailed description, even if it is very much like the previous coin. For someone like me who is not advanced in this area, it can be hard to tell the difference between neighboring entries, if there is one. It is good to have all that info for advanced collectors who can understand it. For me, there are very many pictures and that makes it worthwhile.

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My copies arrived today. The first amazement is that 230 of the 352 plates cover Khusrau II. I knew that most Sasanian coins we see are his but double the total of all the others???? The coins show a great range of qualities including many badly broken and several wholly illegible. The scary part is the collection is nowhere near complete. I was particularly disappointed in the five 'family' drachms of Bahram II. The online listings of CNG sales is vastly larger. If this book of 352 plates and 4424 is a light gloss over in one area, how large would the comprehensive book have been? Learning enough to be expert in the series will take centuries.

I feel I must apologize to Doug for not giving a more extensive review of the two volumes. Clearly the National Museum of Iran holdings were not formed like, say, those of the BM. The BM had major collections donated by serious collectors who sought high-quality coins and rare types, not numerous duplicates. The BM had missing rarities identified and donated intentionally to fill gaps. I imagine that, in contrast, the holdings in the Iran volumes are largely finds in which common coins are very common, condition is what was found and not filtered for quality by a discerning collector, and rare coins are often missing.

Dour's comment on the 'family' drachms of Bahram II is telling. They are among the most interesting Sasanian coins. A serious collector would seek the varieties and assemble more than five pieces. For the National Museum to have only five shows they have not gotten donations the way the BM has.